Clinton admits she was wrong over Iraq war

In her upcoming book the former US secretary of state and likely presidential
runner says she should not have voted to support the war in Iraq and
disagreed with Barack Obama’s Syria policy

Mrs Clinton will publicise her account of four years as America’s senior diplomat on a nationwide book tourPhoto: AFP

Peter Foster and Raf Sanchez

8:48PM BST 06 Jun 2014

Hillary Clinton admits that she “got it wrong” in voting to support George W Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, but says she disagreed with Barack Obama’s decision not to arm moderate rebels in Syria, according to leaked extracts of her forthcoming book.

The insights into the thinking of the former US secretary of state are contained in Hard Choices, the manifesto-memoir which will be published next week and is widely seen as the launch-pad for another bid for the White House in 2016.

“I thought I had acted in good faith and made the best decision I could with the information I had. And I wasn’t alone in getting it wrong. But I still got it wrong. Plain and simple,” she writes, renouncing a decision to support the war that Mr Obama used against her in their 2008 primary contest.

Next week Mrs Clinton will embark on a nationwide book tour to publicise the 688-page account of her four years as America’s senior diplomat, working for Mr Obama, but not always agreeing with him.

However she remains respectful of the man who crushed her hopes of becoming America’s first female president in 2008, while carefully distancing herself from Mr Obama’s decision not to intervene in Syria’s civil war. Describing the seemingly intractable Syrian conflict as a “wicked problem”, Mrs Clinton said she believed the US should have armed the moderate rebels and helped them in their fight against the Assad regime.

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“The president’s inclination was to stay the present course and not take the significant further step of arming rebels,” she writes, according to excerpts obtained by CBS. “No one likes to lose a debate, including me. But this was the president’s call and I respected his deliberations and decision.”

On Afghanistan, she discloses that the Taliban’s “top concerns seemed to be the fate of its fighters being held at Guantánamo Bay” and that the US would always demand the release of Sgt Bowe Bergdahl in on-and-off talks with the enemy.

Mrs Clinton also partly foresees the controversy that would be stirred up by the decision to swap five Taliban fighters for Sgt Bergdahl, writing that “opening the door to negotiations with the Taliban would be hard to swallow for many Americans after so many years of war”.

In most respects, Mrs Clinton is diplomatic, painting a flattering picture of Joe Biden, the US vice-president and a potential rival for the Democratic nomination in 2016, praising him for bringing “a wealth of international experience”.

She recounts a secret meeting with Mr Obama in the 2008 as the two rivals tried to make peace after the election, describing them sitting together drinking chardonnay and being “like two teenagers on an awkward first date”.

In other notable extracts Mrs Clinton, who has made fighting for women’s rights a key part of her tenure as secretary of state, said that she refused a request by the Obama campaign to attack Sarah Palin, John McCain’s ultra-conservative, gaffe-prone running 2008 mate.

“I was not going to attack Palin just for being a woman appealing for support from other women. I didn’t think it made political sense, and it didn’t feel right,” she said.

Outside politics, Mrs Clinton is most emotional writing about the death of her inspirational mother Dorothy Rodham and the wedding of her daughter, Chelsea, which she still managed to help plan despite her hectic international schedule. “I was delighted to help in every way I could, including reviewing photographs of flower arrangements from the road and making time for tastings and dress selections back home,” she said. “I felt lucky that my day job had prepared me for the elaborate diplomacy required to help plan a big wedding.

“Bill was as emotional as I was, maybe even more so, and I was just glad he made it down the aisle in one piece. Our family had been through a lot together, good times and hard times, and now here we were, celebrating the best of times.”